The best Christmas present. Anastasia, 13, a Ukrainian refugee in Britain, she found her grandmother, almost 9 months after leaving her country, says the newspaper West of France this Friday.
Suffering from Smith Magenis syndrome, a rare genetic disease, the young woman has lived with her father Sacha in Névez (Finisterre) since March 12. Thus, they are among the first to leave the country after the Russian invasion began in February.
As Christmas approached, her father decided to ask Anastasia’s grandmother to make the trip from the Ukraine. So Halyna, 60, got on a bus in Ivano-Frankivsk, about a hundred kilometers from Lviv, for a 47-hour trip and more than 2,500 kilometers.
Halyna arrived in Quimper on December 16 for a month, reports the local newspaper. “I thought she would never see them again,” she said through tears.
No traditional Christmas
This December 24, the Ukrainian family will eat a traditional Ukrainian dish but will not exchange gifts, because Santa Claus is “a Russian tradition,” according to Sacha, who works in the Névez municipality’s green spaces service. Anastasia’s gifts were opened earlier this month on December 6 for Saint Nicholas.
The family will also not celebrate Christmas set by the Orthodox Church, between January 6 and 7, in protest of the conflict started by the Russian army in February.
Source: BFM TV
